This invention relates to the manufacture of dynamoelectric field members of the type used, for example, in the production of automobile starter motors and more particularly to a method and apparatus for manufacturing dynamoelectric field members useful in implementing the manufacture of field coils using uninterruptedly continuous rectangular wire or strapping that is edge wound around cores to form plural coils and edge bent to form transitions or connections between coils as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,131,988, granted Jan. 2, 1979, to Hyman B. Finegold.
In said U.S. Pat. No. 4,131,988, a winding procedure (herein termed "the Finegold method") is disclosed in which a mandrel is provided with equally radially and circumferentially spaced core pieces. Strapping is edge wound about each of the core pieces by rotation of the mandrel about a first axis. Connecting or transition wire portions between successively wound coils are formed in part by edge bending the strapping and in part by rotation of the mandrel about a second axis to present successive core pieces in position to be wound. The Finegold method provides substantial advantages over prior methods and is ideally suited for the mass production of wound coils for fields. The core pieces preferably constitute the pole pieces for a dynamoelectric field member and are only temporarily connected to the mandrel, the core pieces being removed with the wound coils for connection to a stator housing or ring.
Practice of the Finegold method in the mass production of stator fields requires apparatus for causing the strapping to follow the contours of the core pieces during the winding operation so that the position of the strapping is adequately controlled during the entire winding procedure and further requires apparatus to properly form the transition or connecting wires between coils. A copending application of Carlton O. Dickensheets, Ser. No. 834,518, filed Sept. 19, 1977, and now abandoned and assigned to the same assignee as the instant application, relates to apparatus that may be used for such purpose. However, the Dickensheets apparatus is highly complex in both construction and operation, and the need exists for simplified apparatus to implement the Finegold method.